India's IOC starts up Panipat naphtha cracker on 11 March

MUMBAI (ICIS news)--Indian Oil Corp (IOC) started up its new 857,000 tonne/year naphtha cracker at Panipat in Haryana state on 11 March, a company source said on Friday.

"We have started the feed and three furnaces have been lighted," the source said, adding that the first on-spec product would be out in less than a week.

The cracker would initially run at around 60%, the source said.

IOC expected to start up the downstream polymer plants in two to three weeks and a 325,000 tonne/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) facility in April, the source added.

The polymer plants include a polypropylene (PP) unit, a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant and a swing HDPE/linear low density PE (LLDPE) facility, which can produce 600,000 tonnes/year of PP and 650,000 tonnes/year of PE.